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Problem easily solved by sawing it in half so you have two pieces, and 'joining' in the middle.

From what Richard explained to me, they should have purchased the correct coupling that would have allowed them to do this without any butchery, but they never bothered because I suspect they didn't have a clue what they were doing. 

Even if they (well you in reality) had purchased the correct coupling, what do you think is the probability that they would have used it correctly?

You may have gathered that my opinion of the construction industry is rather low.  Actually its not that low, I have encountered some absolutely great people in the industry, a real joy to work with.  Its just that the poor ones can be poor in almost every respect it seems!

Problem easily solved by sawing it in half so you have two pieces, and 'joining' in the middle.

From what Richard explained to me, they should have purchased the correct coupling that would have allowed them to do this without any butchery, but they never bothered because I suspect they didn't have a clue what they were doing. 

low lost

low lost?

The pipe was actually £780 plus VAT. Factory-insulated, purpose-built and apparently destined to be sawn apart and cable-tied back together in the ground like a Blue Peter project. Tremendous value.

Like I say above this stuff has a min bend radius around 1m.  So the sort of thing is (presumably) horrible to deal with in one piece that will inevitably have awkward bends both ends. 

Problem easily solved by sawing it in half so you have two pieces, and 'joining' in the middle.

This is exactly how construction works in my experience if not supervised (which unfortunately can mean supervised by the customer).  Seriously shocking I know!  

Even so, the majority of the price you paid must've been for labour in digging the trench and back-filling.
The pipe itself would be nothing like the £750 you were charged.

Funny you should mention labour... I dug the trench myself. Younger, more optimistic, blissfully unaware of what would eventually be buried in it. The crew handled the backfill, which in hindsight was the only part of the job that required absolutely no skill whatsoever.

The pipe was actually £780 plus VAT. Factory-insulated, purpose-built and apparently destined to be sawn apart and cable-tied back together in the ground like a Blue Peter project. Tremendous value.

Hysterically, on my invoice it's the low lost pipe. Indeed it is. 

Oh, and I was going through the invoice, there's £500 for MCS certification and commissioning. For a system that was commissioned on a fixed flow temperature of 45 degrees with weather compensation switched off... essentially a system that was never properly commissioned and certified by a scheme that offered us no meaningful recourse. Genuinely one of the more expensive pieces of paper I've ever owned.

I've previously been sent photos from other sites which had longish outdoor pipe-runs.

There was one which used a pre-insulated pipe pair, Rauthermex-duo:

There's a range of different bores available.

Even so, the majority of the price you paid must've been for labour in digging the trench and back-filling.
The pipe itself would be nothing like the £750 you were charged.

I also don't like the look of the double 90° copper elbows in your photo.

If they were going to make that section from copper anyway, then the installers could've used a pipe-bending jig to fabricate smooth bends.

Absolutely agree.  The practical issue I suspect is that that Rauthermax stuff is very expensive and also has a min bend radius of about 1m - horrid to say the least. 

Its whats needed (unless you are going to make something up yourself which god forbid installers from doing!), but there are severe disincentives to using it!  There are also detailing considerations either end which your average person probably wont bother with.

I've previously been sent photos from other sites which had longish outdoor pipe-runs.

There was one which used a pre-insulated pipe pair, Rauthermex-duo:

There's a range of different bores available.

Even so, the majority of the price you paid must've been for labour in digging the trench and back-filling.
The pipe itself would be nothing like the £750 you were charged.

I also don't like the look of the double 90° copper elbows in your photo.

If they were going to make that section from copper anyway, then the installers could've used a pipe-bending jig to fabricate smooth bends.

Posted by: @editor

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The pipe we'd paid £780 plus VAT for (factory-insulated, purpose-built heat loss pipe) had been sawn and cable-tied back together in the ground. No proper coupling. No sealing.

 

What material was the pipe made from?
Was it a metal or a plastic?

Was it just the insulation which was sawn through, or the pipe itself?

The initial pipes running to/through the thick/bulky heat loss pipe were copper, but changed to plastic for the main, long 25m run. Is that what you meant?

As for the insulation, it was the entire heat loss insulation pipe that was cut through as shown below and then cable tied.

I don't think you'd get a direct answer to "Did you launch the BUS as it is by incompetence or design?"

Indeed, the only people that might answer that are departed civil servants who will recall what instructions they were given, but they will also be partisan!